Saturday, December 15, 2018

This album is curious and engaging. In a sense, it fits right in with much
of the rest of the Caduc catalogue of abstract electro-acoustic music. In
fact, it is one of the most compelling releases on the label so far and,
really, of this type of EAI that I have yet encountered.

The first track starts slowly and humbly with a high-pitched hum that
evaporates into a sizzle, then nothingness. Out of this quiet comes the
listener’s first exposure to rich crackles and friction that thread through
the rest of the album. The sounds are varied and interesting. I hear
scraping and bubbling. Sometimes it sounds like the musicians are layering
muted field recordings of rain, flowing water, settling wood, and wind. The
credits, however, maintain that Pascal Battus, Anne-F Jacques, and Tim
Olive are manipulating magnetic pick-ups, motors, rotating services, and
other objects.

The three tracks wax and wane in a manner that has become the convention in
this type of music largely absent repeating rhythms, melodies, or phrases.
(Track three is the partial exception.) That said, the result never grows
stale, repetitive, or predictable. Although each piece has an underlying
unnerving (or maybe decentering) theme, the first and third are slower and
more delicate. For its part, the second is more robust, yet still nuanced
and, excluding an intense middle section, provocatively restrained. Rather
than deploying the extreme dynamics in pitch or volume that one might
expect, Battus, Jacques, and Olive orient their performance around varying
levels of activity, sonic textures, and timbral subtleties.

This is not music for everyone. There are few recognizable elements to
latch onto. There are no sections that will get stuck in your head, or get
your toe tapping. Rather, the power lies in the richness of the sounds, the
creative layering, the satisfying and almost comforting blend of muted
rumblings, and the mysteries of the sound production that went into this.
It is music that is not easy to follow, but is easy to find oneself lost
in.